By Bill Simons

The pursuit of freedom and liberty is at the core of the Jewish American experience. The same is certainly true of other ethnic and racial groups. But history, tradition and status render Jews the “most visible non-Christian religion,” notes historian Adam Jortner. This makes Jews central to the fight for religious freedom and non-sectarian citizenship. 
In 1654, 23 Sephardic Jews, fleeing the Inquisition in Portuguese Brazil, arrived in New Netherland. They were the first Jews to settle in a colony destined to participate in the establishment of the United States. However, the pioneers of Jewish America soon found themselves locked in conflict with Peter Stuyvesant, director-general of Dutch possessions in the New World. 
Stuyvesant pursued discriminatory policies against the Jews, amongst them inequitable taxes, unlawful imprisonment, exclusion from the home guard, occupational barriers and a prohibition against establishing a synagogue. With the aid of the aid of co-religionists in Holland who interceded with the Dutch West India Company, the Jews of New Netherland vitiated several of Stuyvesant’s edicts and outlasted his ousting by the English in 1664. 
In varying degrees, most English colonies on the North American mainland practiced some form of legal restriction against Jews. Joyner’s “A Promised Land” chronicles Jewish support for independence and links that support to the quest for religious freedom and citizenship. The Declaration of Independence of 1776 did not bring full legal rights to all American Jews, but a trajectory of ascending liberty beckoned. Yet, on December 17, 1862, Union major general and future President Ulysses Grant issued Order No. 11, expelling Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky, an edict subsequently revoked by President Abraham Lincoln. In the Shoah’s shadow, the antisemitic Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long rigged the visa system against Jews attempting to flee Nazi persecution.
Ultimately, Jews won their full legal rights, part of their participation in an inclusionary battle for all Americans. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Shaped by a still evolving democracy, America did indeed become the Promised Land for Jews and others seeking liberty and opportunity. 
Today, however, the American democracy is at a critical passage. Ultimately, our democracy is an experiment and, in 2025, the experiment is not going well. Ideological loyalty substitutes for patriotism. Volume and threat replace truth. Chainsaw cuts mock basic needs. Bullying passes for diplomacy. Every sector of the national infrastructure – defense, justice, treasury, trade, communication, health, energy, environment and education – faces the specter of enervation and politicization. 
Writing for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, asserts, “We thrived in America not because we received special treatment, but because we benefitted from equal treatment… In contrast to most of Diasporic Jewish history, in which Jewish safety depended on the vicissitudes of the ruling class, American Jews leaned into the core principles of American democracy as vital instruments to keep us equal, protected, and safe among our fellow Americans. We even went so far as to integrate what we saw as American ideas and ideals into our Jewishness.” In the age of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, American Jews are neglecting that obligation to advocate for universal justice, a responsibility we have long championed as politicians, teachers, writers, soldiers and labor leaders. 
The most fundamental attribute of a representative democracy is suffrage, the right of qualified citizens to vote for federal, state and local officials in fair elections. Through falsehood, intimidation and an attempted coup, however, there was a conspiracy to invalidate the results of the 2020 presidential election. The losing candidate, then the incumbent president, denied the outcome, brought pressure on Georgia officials to find him more votes and encouraged the mob that stormed the Congress on January 6, 2021, granting many of them pardons after regaining office. In February 2025, Donald Trump, once again the incumbent president, declared on his Truth Social platform “Long Live the King!” Disregarding the 22nd Amendment’s clear prohibition, Trump loyalists have raised the threat of a third term. 
Ours is a constitutional democracy with checks and balances providing for separation of powers. The original document and subsequent amendments protect individual rights against the potential tyranny of the majority, aspiring absolutists and government itself. Individuals have the right to articulate unpopular views. 
The Founders made clear in the preamble to the Constitution that the new government was to “promote the general Welfare.” Yet, the current administration energizes its base by demonizing those who espouse competing political views. Libel suits against opposition newspapers, angry demands for the firing of critical media commentators and the White House limiting reporter access to presidential events threaten freedom of the press. As the military service and sacrifice of our diverse groups evidence, no one religious tradition defines American nationalism. In 1933, German democracy was destroyed from within. 
A democracy conquered by falsehood then finds rationalization for aggression abroad. Brave Ukraine has endured insult, manipulation and threat; Canada is called the 51st state; and NATO, supported by every American president, Republican and Democratic alike, since its inception encounters potential desertion. Such attempts to mobilize selfish aggrandizement mock a proud American history built on the overthrow of an imperial power to establish an independent republic; eradication of slavery in a reborn union; the call to “make the world safe for democracy; the liberation of Europe from Nazi subjugation; the rebuilding of the Old World through the Marshall Plan; the heroic Cold War struggle against Soviet tyranny; and the still evolving campaign for universal Civil Rights, social justice and freedom from want. 
The Nazis ascended and consolidated power based on lies. America’s fragile democratic experiment, still the best hope of humankind, necessitates trust in foundational institutions and in our fellow citizens, obligating us to give a decent hearing to competing viewpoints. Informed debate and compromise to forward the common good are far better guardians of the people than coercion and compulsion. 
“Democracy protected Jews in America, if imperfectly, and Jews made it a hallmark of our Americanness to be advocates for democracy in return,” Kurter reminds us. “And as we did this, we recognized that we were not merely fighting for ourselves. So too today, the fight by American Jews for American democracy is not merely for us Jews, but for all of us Americans.”